2022 Spring Speaker Series – Gary Argabright

The Harness Artifact Collection: Perspectives on an Ancient Ross County Landscape and Its Use by Prehistoric Peoples
Featuring Gary Argabright, retired educator and noted authority on prehistoric artifacts of the Scioto River Valley, Chillicothe.
Wednesday, May 11, 7:30 p.m.

Gary Argabright has been collecting, cataloging, and researching prehistoric Native American artifacts from the Scioto River Valley for more than 40 years. His range of interests extends into the study of Ohio’s earliest cultures as well. His interest in Ross County’s pre-historic past began soon after moving here in the late 1970s when he began surface collecting artifacts from local farm fields. Since then he has accumulated and carefully documented site collections from some 60 different farms in Ross County. One such farm—the Harness family farm—is well known to archaeologists all over the Midwest. Its Liberty Earthworks attest to its importance to Hopewell peoples. Nevertheless, a careful examination of the artifact collection assembled by Robert Lee Harness reveals that this landscape was inviting to many other groups throughout prehistory. Join speaker Gary Argabright as
he discusses the artifacts in this collection and the insights which they provide into the use of this landscape by some of its lesser-known inhabitants.